


Si dolci vinci...

by extraneous_accessories



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Time Skips, puke, renaissance!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 17:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7723585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extraneous_accessories/pseuds/extraneous_accessories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The maestro’s hands solid on his shoulders, guiding him toward the table. “Sensa,” Poe can hear him whisper through the blindfold, “You need all of them, Poe. You think you know the shape and dimensions of that apple, and yet it still evades your brush. Feel this.” A firm, round object is pressed into his hand...no, not round. Smooth, yes. It fits into the palm of his hand, filling the space with room to spare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Si dolci vinci...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wobblycompetencies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wobblycompetencies/gifts).



Rain lashes against the windows, its cascading rush a calming background to the quiet bustle of the workshop. A fire crackles merrily in the grate, adding its caracoling shadows to the warm glow of the many candles. Red chalk scratches across the rough paper. Eyes, soft and kind. Suggestions of a jaw, cheekbones that are delightfully askew. A sudden clatter rises above the gentle sound of the rain as Finn’s brush drops to the floor. 

 

“My apologies, maestro,” his aggrieved voice carries across the small space and he stoops to pick up the brush. The poor boy is exhausted, the maestro can see it in the slump of his shoulders, the dark circles beneath his eyes. 

 

“It is well past time for you to retire, Finn,” he says, sighing as he lays his chalk aside, “the day is not getting any younger.” He stretches, spine cracking. His posture has suffered in recent years, and it becomes more and more difficult to apply himself to paper and canvas. 

 

“May I see, maestro?” Finn has gathered his things and stands hesitantly at his side, eyes darting furtively toward the paper in the maestro’s hand. 

 

“Of course.” Finn’s energetic concentration on the red chalk sketch brings a thrill of delight to the maestro’s heart. The boy has made such strides, he can scarcely believe that it has only been seven months since he opened his door to find a wet and shivering urchin huddling beneath his eave. Finn’s fingers, no longer thin as bones, hover inches over the chalk, slowly tracing the lines of the face, the wisps of hair, the crinkle at the corners of the eye. 

 

“Who is he?” he asks after he has absorbed every detail of the sketch. 

 

“A commission for the lady Organa,” the maestro replies, taking a byroad to the truth, “this coming summer will be the anniversary of her brother’s birth.” 

 

“Signore Organa,” Finn breathes in awe, recognition smoothing the lines of study from his face, “I wish I could have known him,” he adds wistfully. 

 

“I think he would have liked you very much.” 

 

“You knew him, maestro?” Finn asks in surprise. The maestro takes his time to reply, letting the aching wave of melancholy pass. 

 

“Yes. I did.” 

 

Finn’s eyes soften, and he glances tactfully at the small clock on the windowsill. “I should very much like to hear of him when time is more our friend,” he says politely. The maestro smiles gratefully and wishes the boy a good night. The sounds of the night fold back in around him as door clicks softly closed behind his apprentice. 

 

He looks down at the sketch in his hand. The years have slipped past like the waters of the Arno, leaving the marks of their path in the lines of his skin, and yet he can still see that face before him as though they had not been parted more than a day....

*

_Standing with all the nervous awkwardness of youth, waiting at the door of the fine house. A servant has taken his letter of introduction from Dona Organa, and he feels an itch of impatience as he waits for a response. Years of study and hope crowd in upon him, filling him with the certainty that his is his only chance. Son of a merchant, now with a trade of his own, this will be the day that will secure his fame and fortune, if only he can make a good-_

_The door opens suddenly, and he jumps, mouth open to reply to what he assumes will be a butler. But his words tumble out and away from him as he gazes in secret horror at the small man in the sky-blue doublet who stands before him. Eyes as blue as winter ice crease at the edges as the man smiles. “Welcome to Firenze, signore Dameron, my sister has spoken to me of you often; I am delighted to meet you.”_

_*_

_The maestro is gazing at him across the table, a half smile upon his handsome face. He feels a thrill of...something in the pit of his stomach and drops his gaze quickly to the rich red of the soup in front of him._

_“You are a skilled craftsman, Poe,” the maestro says in that soft, measured voice that falls on his ear like the feel of the sun in spring, “ And old for a student. Your technique is very fine. Tell me, what do you hope to learn from me?”_

_It is a test, he knows, though he is unsure of how to pass it. He holds the question in his mind, not allowing his attention to drift to the lustre of the maestro’s golden hair in the half light._

_“I know how,” he says after long consideration, “now I want to know why.” The maestro’s smile lights his face._

_“Curiosita, I like that. You are asking the right questions, Poe.”_

_“Thank you, maestro.” Poe hopes desperately that his rush of pleasure does not show on his face._

_“Please,” the maestro says, holding up a hand, “call me Luke.”_

_*_

_The maestro is staring down at the water in the bowl, watching it sparkle and swirl in the sunlight._

_“Tell me what you know of water.” He speaks absently, but the frown that wrinkles that fair brow betrays the depth of his interest._

_“That it is an element,” Poe begins, “that it will take the shape of a given vessel, that it will follow currents. That it can cut rock.”_

_“How do you know that it takes the shape of its container?” Long fingers trail through the dish, breaking the mirror-like surface into a thousand ripples._

_“I-I don’t know.”_

_The maestro tsks quietly. A flush rises to Poe’s face at the gentle reprimand._

_“Then let us test it.”_

_The water splashes onto the table as the maestro overturns the bowl with a clatter. Pools and patterns form on the rough surface of the wood, and the maestro tilts his head, eyes level with the tabletop, gaze sharp as hawk._

_“Look here, then,” he says, gesturing for Poe to join him, “and tell me about this container.”_

_The bowed surface of the water shimmers._

_“But...how can the air be a container?” Poe asks, “and what about the table is causing it to pool this way?”_

_“You see how it does follow the rules you have set for it?” the maestro asks in delight. The touch of his encouraging hand on Poe’s shoulder fills his own heart with a strange, wild joy._

_“Dimostrazione, Poe,” the maestro adds firmly, “is the only way we discover truth. Everything that can be known must be tested.”_

_*_

_The maestro’s hands solid on his shoulders, guiding him toward the table. “Sensa,” Poe can hear him whisper through the blindfold, “You need all of them, Poe. You think you know the shape and dimensions of that apple, and yet it still evades your brush. Feel this.” A firm, round object is pressed into his hand...no, not round. Smooth, yes. It fits into the palm of his hand, filling the space with room to spare._

_“It...it isn’t a circle,” Poe says in surprise, “it’s an oval, and...and all of these bumps, this rough part…”_

_The maestro’s voice is warm in his ear, “You see why the circle on your canvas is holding you back?”_

_*_

_Winter. The maestro huddles by the fire, gazing into its smouldering depths. “How can we ever know?” the sound of his voice fills the frigid air, warming Poe from the inside out._

_“Maestro?”_

_The maestro looks up, a smile on his kind face. Poe has learned to see it with new eyes, watching the slow curve of the deeper cleft that marks the left side of his face, the square line of his jaw. A face of paradox._

_“Just think of all there is to know,” he says and Poe marvels at the contentment in his voice, “All the questions God has given his children, and all the answers we may never have. It is wonderful to contemplate the endless sea of questions that can delight the seeking mind for time uncounted.”_

_“Doesn’t it ever bother you, maestro?” Poe asks, settling a mug of spiced ale at the maestro’s elbow, “not knowing?”_

_“No! Knowledge is as the smoke from our fire here, Poe,” he adds, gesturing to the crackling blaze, “And can be grasped only for a moment before it vanishes into questions. We must delight in ambiguity, or be destroyed by it.”_

_*_

_The maestro frowning over his shoulder at the horse that is struggling to emerge from his canvas. Poe waiting in anxious hope for the word of advice that will unlock this creature from its prison._

_“What do horses eat?” the maestro asks suddenly. Lost for words at such an oblique inquiry, Poe hesitates._

_“Oats, I suppose?”_

_“But you do not know. Have you studied the nature of our equine companions?”_

_“I have seen a horse, yes,” Poe responds. The maestro waves his words away._

_“I trust that you are not blind, Poe, I asked if you have studied them. Watched them carefully, observed the rhythms of their lives.”_

_“...No, maestro.”_

_The maestro vanishes from his side, abandoning the trapped horse and bustling around the workshop with his customary energy and zeal. “Leave the canvas where it is,” he calls, throwing on his cloak, “we must go.”_

_Poe rises hesitantly from his chair, loathe to leave his work. It is so close, he can feel it, if he could just spend another hour or so, he could have it…_

_The weight of the maestro’s hand on his shoulder breaks the spell of his longing. “Come.”_

_“Where are we going?” The maestro’s eyebrows lift in surprise._

_“For a walk in the city,” he replies, as though it is the most natural thing in the world, “Bring your notebook, I will have things to tell and to show to you.”_

_In the weak light of late winter they approach the stables, and understanding begins to unfurl in Poe’s mind. “You must remember, Poe,” the maestro says as they approach the heavy double doors, “that art-the expression of the beautiful- must reflect what is true. And in order to find what is true, you must put away your brushes and learn to see what is in front of you. Truly see it. Understand it in all of its intricate detail.”_

_Poe nods, the lesson now clear in his mind._

_*_

_Sweating, stripped to the waist in the courtyard, the clash of steel in his ears and the rasp of laboured breath in his lungs. The maestro’s eyes locked in his, each swish of his rapier reflected in their sparkling blue. Dust rises from the firm stone flags beneath his feet. Too late, Poe sees the flicker of sudden movement in the maestro’s eyes, the following twitch of the wrist that drives the steel past his guard to hiss across his cheek then lay cool and hard against his throat._

_“A touch, I believe,” the maestro’s voice is breathless in the quiet summer air, raising goosebumps on Poe’s skin beneath the clinging press of his sweat-soaked shirt._

_“A touch,” he agrees, unwilling to break from this moment of perfect connection. The grin will not fade from his face, nor his heart cease its pounding, and yet he cannot quite speak the words that long to break from him._

_The maestro smiles in return, pulling away, and Poe can but stand in his wake, admiring his smooth and easy stride, the effortless grace and economy of his movement._

_*_

_The outline of the maestro’s face glowing in the light of the setting sun as he gazes out from the terrace to the rising dome of the duomo. Poe examines the imperfect lines of that contemplative face, wondering where on the road to search for truth he could have become so irrevocably lost._

_“Such a wonder.” the maestro’s soft voice is like a caress upon his spirit._

_“What is, maestro?”_

_“How many times must I ask you to call me Luke?” the maestro chides him gently. “The shape and form of our designs,” he resumes, the golden hair rustles as the maestro shakes his head gently. “Creatures of such infinite desire and possibility, born of the sun, and with so much promise.”_

_“And for all that we waste our days,” Poe can taste the bitterness in his own voice, “striving after things we cannot ever know.” The maestro turns kind eyes upon him, his gentle smile unravelling the strands of Poe’s heart._

_“No.” His hand is warm, fingers closing gently about Poe’s palm. “Oh, Poe, after all we have seen together, all we have asked, how can you say ‘waste’? If God did not set us in his earth to seek for all that is true and beautiful, what other purpose can we have?”_

_Poe cannot speak past the ache of longing that fills him and so he drops his eyes, letting them rest on the comparable safety of the wine on the side table, willing his voice back under his command._

_“And to long forever for what can never be?” he asks the wine carafe. The touch of the maestro’s hand is like a line of soft fire along the line of his jaw, jerking his eyes back up to meet the intense gaze that rests upon him._

_“We are creatures of infinite possibility.”_

_Gentle heat rising. Brushed satin on his skin as the hands of the maestro mark the contours of his body. Sweetness on his tongue, shifting planes of muscle as he makes his exploration, uncovering the curves and lines from the canvas beneath his hands. Each breath drawn has been drawn before and will be drawn until the end of the world and he sees the burning bonds of light that stretch between all his learning and all that he has left unlearned. And to be bound so, in this moment, is to be more free than he has ever known or dared to hope._

*

It is cold, though candles light the room. Cold as the narrow grave that has lain filled these many years. The lines of red chalk blur before him, mixing with the glimmer of the candles in a myriad twinkling shards of light, the shape of them fading from his mind. Familiar, the old ache sinks into his soul. 

 

“Creature of infinite possibility,” his trembling voice mingles with the dry snapping of the fire, “and who might have confined me in such sweet bonds, only to leave me to light the dark alone?” 

 

No answer came, save the hiss of the dying fire.


End file.
